The invention relates to a method for controlling the production of a print product by means of a Management Information System (“MIS”), wherein the MIS initially transmits MIS job data to a prepress system, and thereafter the prepress system creates prepress job data for at least one execution system operating in the production of the print product.
In graphic production, thus in the production of various types of print products rationalization potentials are exploited through increased networking of all sectors, in particular sales, job costing and order processing, production planning and control, in actual production in prepress, press and post press and shipping, in the cross sectional areas of materials and warehouse management, financial and payroll accounting, controlling, cost accounting and quality assurance, down to managing customer and vendor contact information. The productivity improvement, which can be achieved through networking, is substantially influenced by the quality of the interfaces for exchanging data between various associated systems.
The Job Definition Format “JDF” and the Job Messaging Format “JMF”, as a subgroup of JDF, are generally known formats, which were developed and are maintained for data exchange by the consortium “International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress” (“CIP4-Consortium”, www.cip4.org). The CIP4 specification is based on the object to standardize the communication between all systems of the print shop, the designer, the advertising agency, customer of print products and subcontractors of contractors within a networked graphic production for all production variants and potential situations in a flexible manner without restrictions.
JDF, which is based on the “Extensible Markup Language” (“XML”), a well known meta language for defining document types, developed by the “World Wide Web Consortium” (“W3C”, www.w3.org), is not only intended according to the intention of the CIP4-consortium to facilitate the system overreaching description of processes and products, but is additionally intended through vertical integration, on the one hand, of the production process, and, on the other hand, of the commercial departments, to facilitate a high level of transparency of all production processes, a standardized documentation of the relevant target and actual data, and an overreaching production control in an understandable and integrated data structure. In particular, a job in JDF shall be described only once in one form, which is understood by all process participants also in external communication with customers as well as with subcontractors and their executing systems in the man-machine and machine-machine communication over language and platform boundaries.
Contrary to the philosophy of the CIP4-consortium and to the concept of JDF based thereon, however, there are significant restrictions in real life operations of networked graphic production, and there are specific differences with respect to the information, which is required, actually used or provided for use by other execution systems by the particular execution systems. The method described supra in this context relates to the communication between a Management Information System (“MIS”) as a central controlling and monitoring unit in networked graphic production and a prepress system. A MIS, which implements such a method, is generally known from the applicant under the product designation “HIFLEX” (www.hiflex.de).
In the context of a request for quotation at a graphic production company regarding the production of a print product, a customer initially specifies request data in a generally known manner thus, in particular, format, print-run, paper- and print quality, binding type and latest delivery date for the completed print product. In the context of the known method, the MIS initially automatically determines based on said request data a particular group of possible parameters for producing the print product, e.g. the imposing schemes, the sheet formats and paper types used for the print sheets, down to selecting the execution systems to be actually used, like e.g. prepress-, press-, folding-, cutting-, binding- and packaging systems including the respective use dates and run times, and calculates a possible quote based on the costs incurred in the particular cost chapters.
The known MIS initially substantially automatically determines the essential basics for the accounting for generating a quote for producing a print product according to the customer request based on said job data, possibly after manual specification or change of particular parameters and subsequent recalculation of dependent parameters of the production and of the quote. When the customer accepts the quote, the MIS uses the same job data for controlling the execution systems and transmits said MIS job data, e.g. in JDF format to a well known prepress system, and as start information to the other execution systems for setting up the job.
For example, the MIS determines an imposing scheme in the context of calculating a quote, thus it determines an assembly of pages of the print product to be jointly printed on a print sheet and transmits said assembly to the prepress system after the job has been aborted. The imposing scheme can be transmitted by JDF or, depending on the requirements of the prepress system, in one of the precursor formats of JDF, the binary “Portable Job Ticket Format” (“PJTF”) developed by Adobe, or in a proprietary format.
Generally known prepress systems, like e.g. Agfa Delano or Heidelberg Printready, comprise a proprietary interface for communicating with the customer. Through this interface, typically a web interface, the customer transmits the actual page information to the prepress system typically in “Portable Document Format” (“PDF”) in order to complete the job data.
Furthermore, the system operator gets the option, generally upon an order by his manager, to revise the job data. In order to still provide the greatest flexibility to the customer after the job has been aborted, the known prepress system provides options among other things to subsequently adapt the print run, the page format, the page number, the paper- and print quality, and the colors and the binding of the print product and suggests, if required, another imposing scheme from a proprietary library of imposing schemes, which is compatible with the revised parameters. By means of the prepress system, the system operator then combines the information of the imposing scheme and of the pages in an interactive process.
Based on this combined information, the prepress system, on the one hand, creates a print sheet layout for the plate setter for producing a printing plate and, on the other hand, creates a job ticket with prepress job data for the subsequent print execution systems. The job ticket, as a digital counterpart to the job folder, thus among other things defines the additional parameters as a collection of information for producing the print sheet, using the exposed printing plate on the print system. Besides PJTF and JDF, the use of “Print Production Format” (“PPF”), based on a development by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, or the use of proprietary formats based on said development, are quite common.
On the subsequent execution systems, like e.g. printing- and binding machines, an automatic setup is not possible anymore, due to the changes relative to the MIS job data. The respective machine operator rather sets up the job, generated according to the MIS data, according to the possibly deviating prepress job data, mostly based on manually inserted supplemental directions, e.g. from the department manager. This activity places high demands on the internal communications in the graphic production shop, and eventually on the machine operator, who has to detect the changes which are relevant for the respective execution system and who has to set up the respective system accordingly. This setup activity is, on the one hand, error prone and thus cost intensive and, on the other hand, frequently leads to unscheduled shutdown times in production by itself.
In the context of the control of the production of a print product according to the known method, the MIS, although, possibly still obtains knowledge of the prepress job data which differ from the MIS job data, in the sense of a report regarding the completion of the tasks of the prepress system, however, the MIS does not interpret said job data, since it does not interfere by itself with the production process in subsequent execution systems. In the MIS, thus status reports of the subsequent execution systems cannot be safely associated, due to the possibility of deviations of the MIS job data from the prepress job data which are the actual basis for the production, in particular, when the number of the print sheets is subsequently increased, said status reports can neither be used in their entirety for monitoring production of a print job, nor for product cost analysis of the print job without manual rework.
It is the object of the invention to facilitate handling deviations between the job and the quote.